Search

Hey folks, you may have noticed that the content on the site is becoming less frequent that before (was it ever truly “frequent”?). I just want to keep you up to date as to why.

If you’re a regular reader you’ll know that I moved to Barcelona to do my Master’s degree in Nutrition and Metabolism. That goal was competed last summer and now I’m moving on the next stage of my plan.

I’m currently setting myself up as an online nutritional consultant based out of Barcelona, basically pursuing my passion of helping people live healthier lives. There’s quite a bit of work ahead of me with website design and content writing for my new site but I’m very, very excited about it.

On top of that I’m also writing articles for Latin Dance Community which I find very rewarding too. All of this means that I may not be dedicating as much time to the Dancing Irishman blog for a while. I’m still here, just focusing on other projects at the moment.

Anyway, I hope you’ll still be looking forward to reading my stuff when I finally get back to it in the future (it could be next month for all I know).

Have you been working-out lately? Because you look spectacular 🙂 If you liked this article go ahead and share it with your friends via the Facebook or Twitter buttons below and if you use Stumbleupon please give it a “Thumbs Up”. I’d really appreciate it 😉

Like this:

It’s that time of year again. You’ve probably spent the last few days eating your own bodyweight in (less than totally healthy) food and sitting on your backside watching traditional Christmas movies (which if you’re Irish, means Indiana Jones… for some unknown reason).

You’re also probably reflecting on the past year, what you’ve achieved and what you haven’t and more importantly what you want to do for the coming year… that is, your New Year’s Resolutions. (NYR)

I’m hear to tell you stop that train of thought right now because it’s not doing you any favors.

Why you fail
If you’re anything like the vast majority of people, you’ve failed miserably at your NYRs within the first few weeks of the year (for many it’s the first few days or even hours). To be honest it never struck be as being sensible to begin some major life changes on a day you are likely to be seriously hung-over from the night before…. not many people are likely to want to go for a 5 mile jog and make themselves a nice healthy salad on a day when they’re really only physically capable of lying on the couch wrapped in a blanket and eating leftover pizza (I know you know what I’m talking about 😉 ).

Be it eating healthy, exercising more, learning a new language, mastering a new skill (dance anyone?) people decide to take on huge challenges and then give up at the first sign of difficulty. Inevitably, this year’s failed resolution will become the resolution for next year instead… and so continues the vicious cycle.

Don’t let some random date dictate when you make changes in your life. If you want something, go for it and stick with it.

3 Huge Mistakes
Most people who fail at making new changes in their lives do so because they’re making 3 very common mistakes.

They aren’t specific with their goals

They don’t plan on how to achieve their goals

They attempt too much too soon and get demotivated when they fail

Be specific
If you want to learn to dance, what do you want to learn? Salsa, Bachata, Swing, Tango? There’s a lot of styles out there so you better look into it and ask around. If you want to eat healthy, what exactly do you mean by that? I’m a nutritionist and the term “healthy” is very subjective depending on who you speak to or what you read. You need to educate yourself to make informed decisions.

Plan
Once you know what you want, how are you going to achieve it? If it’s dancing, where are you going to take classes or go to socials. If it’s learning a new skill, what learning materials will you use. If it’s exercising more: when, where and what? If you fail to plan you plan to fail.

Slow and Steady
You want to get a beach body by summer so do you decide to immediately go from doing no exercise at all to lifting weights 7 days a week? Hell no, that’s a quick way to burnout and failure. Equally, do you decide to do two hours of language exchanges every day to learn French? It’s just not realistic. Fair enough, it might work for some people but not for the majority. If you want to develop new better habits, you’ve got to make them easy to stick to at first otherwise you’ll get fed up pretty damn quick.

Make it a long term change
When people decide on their NYRs they generally do something to try and improve their lives; to be healthier and happier. These aren’t things that you should undertake lightly… your health and happiness are the most important things you will ever have.

So, instead make these changes something that you’re going to work on gradually and CONSISTENTLY… for the rest of your life.

Don’t decide to go on a drastic diet and start binge exercising just so you can fit into a dress for a wedding in April, only give up entirely once the wedding is over. Instead decide to start making some lifestyle changes that will allow you live a healthier life, with a body you can be proud of for the rest of your years.

Don’t suddenly decide to give up all alcohol for the next 6 months if all you want to do is reduce your consumption to be healthier (Bear in mind that I don’t drink alcohol at all but also did my masters thesis on the health benefits of wine so I have conflicting opinions on the subject). If giving up booze entirely makes you unhappy or isolates you from your social groups then you’re very likely to give up on it entirely and just continue drinking as much as ever.

What I’m saying is that life changes don’t need to be ridiculously drastic nor should they make you miserable. The more drastic they are and the more miserable the make you the more likely you are to just give up and go back to the way you were before. Consistency is key in life, be it diet, nutrition, dance or whatever. To make something work you need to stick with it (assuming you really want it to work).

And this brings us back to New Year’s Resolutions. These important life changes or goals you have shouldn’t be dependent on a specific time or day of the year. The benefits of change are reaped over time, not instantly so it doesn’t matter if you decide to make a change the day before new years or a month later or in the middle of September. What matters is that you stick to your guns and make the change a consistent part of your life. As Aristotle famously said “We are what we repeatedly do” (not what we do for the first 2 or 3 weeks after New Years).

I haven’t made a New Year’s Resolution in a long time and I’m very happy with the results. Try to forget about them this year and instead make a long term effort to be consistent and really achieve the things you want in life.

Have you been working-out lately? Because you look spectacular 🙂 If you liked this article go ahead and share it with your friends via the Facebook or Twitter buttons below and if you use Stumbleupon please give it a “Thumbs Up”. I’d really appreciate it 😉

Well, I’ve been experimenting with something else and I have to say that I simply love it the way it allows me to enjoy every type of food imaginable and still stay healthy and lean.

I’m talking about “If It Fits Your Macros” commonly known by its acronym, IIFYM.

In a nutshell, IIFYM is a way of eating that makes you focus on the macros that you eat everyday.

What the heck’s a Macro???Macros or macronutrients is the umbrella term for Protein, Fats and Carbohydrates, the 3 main energy sources in our diet. They’re what make up the calories of food.

So if you follow IIFYM, you “Track Macros” in your food, usually using one of the many apps available for smartphones such as “My Fitness Pal” (which I absolutely love).

Basically, its a way of food journaling, keeping track of what your eating and trying to keep it within certain calorie/macro limits that you set based on your personal goals (weight loss/gain/maintenance). Food journaling, it turns out, is a really effective way of getting people to stick to their diets. When we write something down, we’re adding a level of responsibility to our food habits and this seems to really help us stick to our goals.

Here’s a little secret… MOST DIETS WORK!You’ll hear of people (especially celebrities) trying out a new fad diet and losing loads of weight and you’ll assume that diet must be the answer to your fat loss problems. You’ll get into it all gung-ho, lose weight but then probably gain some of it back. That doesn’t mean the diet is ineffective, it probably means your just not following it as well anymore. You’ve lost compliance.

Tracking macros sounds like a pain in the a$$For the first week or so, it is. Then, you get used to it and, just like any established habit, it becomes natural and automatic.

The app I recommended above, My Fitness Pal, while not entirely perfect is really easy to use and helps you track and plan your food intake on a daily basis. It also allows you to look back at how you were eating a few weeks ago and compare that to changes in your body weight over time. The best way to learn how to use it is to simply start using it. Best of all, it’s completely free to download to your phone.

Here’s a screenshot of a typical calorie/macro tracking app

But why bother?
Here’s the deal, most of the diets I mentioned above, work (somewhat indirectly) by limiting your calories by eliminating or restricting various foods. Restrictive diets, more often than not, result in reduced compliance over time.

For example, if someone told you to do Atkins (a very low carb diet) for a month, you’d lose weight but at the end of the month, you’d probably only have one thing on your mind: eating all the food you “weren’t allowed” during the diet. Bread, cakes, ice-cream, french fries, sugar-dipped deep-fried snickers… it would be a big free for all, that might last a few days or a week and would result in two things:

you gaining back all the weight you lost and…

you feeling guilty about what you ate

And so begins another restrictive weight-loss/binge cycle. This is pretty typical of “Clean Eating” type diets that work by eliminating various categories of “undesirable” foods. A good example would be Paleo (I’m not trying to demerit Paleo, I’m just saying that it’s a restrictive diet.

With IIFYM, you don’t eliminate any foods.You can technically eat whatever you want as long as it fits your daily macro targets i.e. as long as you get it to fit your daily goals for calories, protein, fats and carbohydrate. In the case of IIFYM, you control portion size to fit your needs.

The Problem with IIFYM
Nothing is perfect and there is one, “potentially” huge problem with IIFYM. From what I’ve seen of other people that practice IIFYM is that there can be a tendency to eat absolutely whatever you want as long as you hit your macro goals. This means that you could technically hit your goals eating junk food and supplementing with a little protein.

THIS IS NOT HEALTHY!!!

IIFYM works when you follow a healthy diet filled with whole foods, vegetables and fruits etc and allowing yourself SOME relaxed (read not so healthy) food too.

If you look at my day of eating above, almost everything I ate was unprocessed apart from the whey protein and the cheesecake. I ate lots of fruit and vegetables and got plenty of protein, fibre and phytonutrients so I had no problem allowing myself the cheesecake at the end of the day.

Would it have been healthier to replace the cheesecake with whole foods? Absolutely! But then I’d also be left craving cheesecake and be more likely to binge on it in the future. This way, I fit it into my daily goals, don’t feel restricted and still woke up this morning with a six-pack. WIN WIN!!!!

The Importance of Whole FoodsThe problem with the way we eat these days is pretty simple; we eat food too high in calories and too low in nutrients to maintain health.

The more calories you eat, the more vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fibre we need to help our body deal with the excess energy load. Unfortunately we’ve managed to strip our foods, thanks to processing, so that these days most processed foods just provide us with easily consumed calories and not much else. If I have learned anything so far in all the lectures of this Masters degree in Nutrition that I’m doing, it’s this:

For our body to function optimally we need to provide it with the nutrients it needs while not not consuming more energy than we expend.

The best way I’ve found to do this is for us to eat a diet rich in vegetables and other unprocessed foods while tracking our macronutrients and allowing ourselves some of foods we love and crave in responsible portions… while exercising like a beast 😉

A healthy diet should be based on healthy, whole foods with a little leeway for some of the good things in life!

I exercise (weight training and almost no cardio), I eat a lot to cover my energy needs and I eat enough vegetables to feed a small petting zoo. But on top of that I eat out with friends from time to time and I always make room for some ice-cream or cheesecake or whatever else I feel like. I track what I eat and this way I keep myself happy and healthy.

What about Christmas Dinner?
I track my macros daily and exercise hard to maintain my weight and it works because I do it consistently.The state of our body and health is the result of what we do most of the time!

So am I going to track my macros on Christmas day? F@€K NO! I plan on eating like a beast (and for a small guy I can really down a lot of food). I’ll eat to excess and it’s not going to bother me because it’s just one day.

This will all be mine!

However, the very next day I’ll be back in the gym and back counting macros (and enjoying it).

This article is really meant just as an introduction to the concept of something I have found to be very useful in my life. The best way to get into it yourself is to download the app and just start. If you do it right and if you do it consistently, it can help you achieve your diet goals in a way you never thought possible.

Seriously! I can think of nothing worse than spending 30 minutes or more jogging or doing lengths in a swimming pool. The monotony is mind-numbing. In fact, the only time I ever mildly enjoy jogging is when the weather’s good and I can enjoy the sun on my skin and the view of the mountains from my route… but I live in Ireland where “good weather” is one of those legends we hear of as children but only really get to experience a handful of days out of the year… stupid North Atlantic weather.

Don’t even get me started on treadmills. How anyone can spend more than 5 minutes running in the same place, breathing the same stale air and looking at the same gym scenery is utterly beyond me. People who can spend 30 minutes on a treadmill have truly mastered the art of mentally shutting down and zoning-out. Maybe they’ve learned to meditate while jogging. Or maybe they’re just dead inside!

So why bother?
Well, the cold hard truth is that people do cardio because no one want’s to be fat. Extended periods of moderate intensity exercise (read “cardio”) such as jogging, swimming, biking etc. are good ways to burn body fat. All of these are classified as “aerobic” exercises which means they use oxygen to produce energy. Your bodies preferential fuel source for aerobic exercise is fat as opposed to to anaerobic exercises (such as sprinting or heavy weight lifting) which use carbohydrates as their energy source.

I’m certainly not saying aerobic exercise is better than anaerobic (my own training routine would contradict that), I’m just saying that aerobic exercise has a role to play in getting us ready for beach season.

Bikini season is coming… I’ve completely lost my train of thought!

So what’s wrong with cardio?Simple answer:IT’S BORING!!!I actually have to psyche myself up to go for a jog and I know I’m not the only one. As soon as I step on the pavement, all I can think of is “when is this going to be over”. I feel the same way swimming laps in a pool. I’m just counting down the minutes until I can stop. That’s not a good way to encourage physical activity.

Geeky answer:It produces cortisolCortisol is a hormone that your body produces in times of stress. Stress can be induced by lots of factors (as we all know) but one of them is exercise, particularly sustained moderate/high intensity cardio.

Now, cortisol is not all bad, it actually induces the beneficial effects of exercise through its catabolic (break down) effects. Basically it signals your body that it needs to get stronger by breaking down tissue. However if cortisol levels remain high your body gets stuck in a catabolic state and can’t get into the anabolic (build up) state that it needs to improve conditioning. Basically your body is stuck breaking down muscle tissue as opposed to building it up. This can result in a whole host of problems such as reduced muscle tone, higher susceptibility to infection, poor sleep and increased abdominal fat (everyone’s favorite type of fat 😉 ).

Excessive cardio (e.g. long distance running) can often result in the body type seen on the right. Probably not the look most people are going for.

This is a perfect example of too much of a good thing. Excessive moderate/high intensity cardio makes you produce too much cortisol.

Do what you love
The best way to exercise, in my opinion, is to do something you love.

When you enjoy something, you stick with it and when it comes to getting the benefits of exercise, consistency is key.

That’s why it’s better to do something that you enjoy doing for the sake of doing it, rather than just to get exercise. Be it soccer, tennis, basketball or no-holds-barred hopscotch, finding an activity you enjoy is important.

In my final year in Japan I had no trouble maintaining low body fat because I was surfing regularly (I lived next to the sea and had my own car to take my board around). I didn’t go surfing because I wanted to get exercise, I went because I loved catching waves (even though I sucked). I did it regularly and it kept me lean.

Another advantage of doing an activity that you love is that it helps to combat stress which actively reduces cortisol and helps to prevent its negative effects.

Salsa Caliente
I have noticed that I have no trouble staying lean if I’m social dancing around 3 nights a week.

When I lived in Dublin a few years ago, I took a month off form social dancing while I was doing a CELTA course (there was hefty workload in the evenings). Apart from the lack of dancing, my diet and my weight training (which I did in the mornings) didn’t change. I did, however, notice that I was gaining weight. Once I started dancing again, the weight just melted off.

Now, salsa dancing isn’t overly intense. Have a look at the “estimated” calories burned (for someone weighing 70kg) for 30 minutes of the following activities*:

Now, except for the value for Salsa dancing, I’m very skeptical about the veracity of the remaining values (especially the last one) but lets assume they’re relatively accurate.

Over 30 minutes, salsa appears to have a caloric expenditure similar to biking and jogging. Fair enough, that seems about right. However, I’ve never known someone to go social dancing for just 30 minutes.

The great thing about salsa is that it’s so addictive. When I go social dancing, I can be out dancing for one, two, three or more hours. And I’m enjoying every second of it (as opposed to jogging where I’m just wishing for it to end). So when you look at it like that, dancing for two (very enjoyable) hours could burn ~860 calories as opposed to 210 calories from a torturous half hour of jogging (the value for salsa will obviously be lower due to breaks taken on a night out dancing).

Anyone who has had a good night of salsa dancing also knows how out of breath and sweaty one gets by the end of the night.

Out of Breath and Sweaty?
Sounds like cardio to me. And that’s just what it is. A night of salsa dancing is an extended period of moderate intensity aerobic exercise.

Salsa is one of the best low intensity exercises you can do.

It beats the hell out of jogging as it’s a hell of a lot more fun, it’s easier on the joints, it helps to reduce stress (and associated cortisol levels) and it’s a social activity you can enjoy with friends. You can check out a whole load of other reasons to dance salsa here. Think about it though: Which would you prefer, a half hour of running or 2 hours of salsa dancing?

Why a salsa class won’t help youNow, after saying all that, if you think going to an hour-long salsa class three times a week is going to give you abs you could grate carrots on, you are sadly mistaken.

Most salsa classes are focused on teaching you new techniques and thus the intensity is far too low. In all honesty, how many times have you been sweaty and out of breath after a salsa class?

The only exception would be Zumba but that’s more aerobics than dancing (no disrespect to zumba, I’m just calling it like I see it).

A few hours of hot and sweaty social dancing, two or three times a week is really one of the best “no will power needed” fat-burning routines you could ever try.

You enjoy it = You do it regularly = You get results

The Secret Ingredient
Let’s not forget the most important factor when it comes to dropping body fat:

“Abs are made in the kitchen”

You can do all the exercise you want but if you’re not eating well, the only time you’re going to see abs is watching Ryan Reynolds movies (damn that guy looks good).

I hate Ryan Reynolds for looking so good!

Don’t let your good efforts on the dance floor go to waste, make an effort with your food and you’ll be able to put Mr. Reynolds to shame. If you need some tips on tweaking your diet you can check out these articles here and here.

So get up and shake that booty
I don’t have the option to go dancing right now (here in the middle of the mountains) so I have to settle for jogging as my regular cardio (and it is a very distant runner up to salsa). So to those of you who can, get up, get moving and a dance a few songs for me.

Keep dancing folks.

EDIT: After I initially published this article I was contacted by Pablo Alberto Domene, a PhD student at Kingston University who is studying the the physical and psychological benefits of Latin dance. He very kindly corrected the caloric expenditure values I had originally used for salsa (which were too low) based on his own research. You can read up on Pablo’s work on his excellent blog: SalsaPhDThanks for your help Pablo and I wish you continued success in your studies.

Have you been working-out lately? Because you look spectacular 🙂 If you liked this article go ahead and share it with your friends via the Facebook or Twitter buttons below and if you use Stumbleupon please give it a “Thumbs Up”. I’d really appreciate it😉

Like this:

I don’t drink… I don’t smoke… I don’t do drugs… but by God do I EAT!!!

A well managed cheat day does not have to be a diet ruiner!

I have had a weekly cheat day for almost 7 years now and I refined my technique greatly after reading Tim Ferris’s “The 4 Hour Body”. I try to eat as clean as I can during the week but 1 day of pure food-based hedonism out of every 7 helps keep me sane and reminds me how crappy junk food makes me feel. I’ve written about the importance of cheat days for sticking to eating plans here!

The World Games ended here last Sunday (my usual cheat day) so this week I decided to make a pig of myself on Monday.

Here’s a step-by-step, bite-by-bite guide to gorging like a professional eater and not worrying about the repercussions. I’ve included estimates of calorie intake for the meals as best I can.

9.00am: Coffee to start the engines
I start a cheat day the same way I do every other day of the week. Three large glasses of ice-cold water followed by two large mugs of strong, black coffee. I “intermittent fast” so I don’t take any calories before at least midday which means I don’t use milk or sugar.

The caffeine in the coffee causes your body to release lipids from fat-cells into the blood stream when your body is in a fasted state. That means your morning coffee gets you burning fat as soon as you wake up.Calories: 0

11.45am: Gym

Just back form the gym and ready to start my day of gluttony

I’m nursing an elbow injury at the moment and both my physiotherapist and chiropractor advised me to avoid upper body movements for the next month. So I had a fairly heavy leg’s day to make up for it. I did eleven sets of 5 reps of squats pyramiding up to and then down from my maximum weight.

Having a cheat day on a heavy exercise day means that some of the excess calories you consume will at least be put to good use in rebuilding your muscles.

I also try to cycle around the city throughout the day to keep my muscles active which promotes the shuttling of nutrients into muscle cells in preference to fat storage.

1.00pm: Sugar Rush

Two local specialties, “Panelita de Leche” and “Arequipe”. They’re pretty much sugar and milk!

Right after heavy exercise muscles need sugar to halt the catabolic (muscle break down) effects of cortisol. To begin the anabolic (muscle building) process nothing is better than high-glycemic (fast release) sugars. I normally use a couple of bananas but seeing as I didn’t have any food left in the house (I had no time to go shopping while volunteering at the games) these little desserts I received during the games had to suffice.Calories: 180

1.20pm: Grilled Beef, Bolognaise, Cheese and Vegetable Sandwich

My first lunch; a surprisingly good sandwich!

Calories: 600

1.50pm: Banana Bread

I really love good banana bread. Unfortunately this wasn’t that good!.

This was a nice post workout carb-boost (Roasted plantain and fried yellow potatoes are amongst my favourite foods in Colombia)

The day previously I had a whole conversation about fried chicken with my buddy Santana which combined with watching the movie “Soul Plane” left me with some serious cravings for fried chicken. This really hit the spot.

Gloves for eating chicken are such a great idea.

I also had to show a picture of something I’ve only seen in Colombia. People eat fried chicken here with gloves and although it looks weird at first it really is a great idea and stops your fingers getting super greasy.

A genovesa is like a sponge cake that has been soaked in condensed milk and cream to create an incredibly wet, sweet cake which in this case was topped with peach compote. I try not to drink my calories so the coffee was black and unsweetened.

On another note, if you’re wondering how I pass my time in between mouthfuls, I read a lot while I’m eating. I always have a selection of books stored on my phone so I never get bored while I’m gorging myself.Calories: 500

4.10pm: Cherry Cheesecake Ice-cream

Some of Colombia’s best ice-cream courtesy of “Crepes & Waffles”

Calories: 200

4.40pm: Almojabana

One of Colombia’s better pastry products: Light, slightly cheesy and with a hint of sweetness

Calories: 180

4.50pm: Oreo-Cream Cupcake

This expensive little fecker neither lived up to its name nor its price tag

Calories: 300

5.00pm: Calorie Mate

“Cheese” flavor, apparently… they really should return to taste testing.

Calorie Mate is a product that anyone who has lived in Japan for any decent length of time will recognize. It’s basically a “nutritionally balanced” meal replacement biscuit. I received loads from the Japanese Ultimate Frisbee Team that I was translating for during the World Games. I fail to understand it’s popularity.Calories: 200

5.10pm: Instant “Tan Tan Men” noodles

Another gift from the Japanese Frisbee Team.

Calories: 120

5.20pm: Probiotic Yogurt

This is my favorite yogurt here because of the probiotic mix it contains

Eating huge quantities of sugar and other junk foods can play havoc with your intestinal flora (the bacteria that live in your digestive tract) so I always make sure I take a good hit of probiotic (good bacteria) yogurt when I have a cheat day to help restore the balance of good bacteria faster.Calories: 50

5.30pm: Nutella (imitation)

Not the real deal but just as tasty!

I found this imitation nutella on special offer. I hadn’t had nutella in a while so I added it to the cart. I polished off half of it the way it’s supposed to be done… straight out of the jar with a spoon.Calories: 550

7.00pm: Oreo Ice-cream

This stuff is simply orgasmic!

I have a serious weakness for Ice-cream and this Oreo ice-cream by Popsy is amazing (I avoided it for ages because I “kind of” snobbishly looked down on oreos but it really is an amazing ice-cream. I got through about three quarters of the tub.Calories: 1200

8.00pm: Oatmeal (The Cleanup Guy)

One very runny bowl of porridge (oatmeal)

It’s a great idea to finish off a cheat day with a good punch of soluble fiber. This helps to move the food through your digestive tract faster and the soluble fiber also cleans your intestines along the way helping to expel any waste that might otherwise remain after such a day of gluttony.

A couple of tablespoons of freshly ground flaxseeds in water (swallowed as fast as possible as it’s horrible stuff) would be even better.Calories: 50

9.10pm: One seriously distended stomach

To say that I was on the point of exploding would be quite accurate.

Grand Calorie Total: 5630

Am I worried about this huge glut of calories? No.

Why? Because every other day of the week I eat very, very healthy food in very controlled portions.

If I ate like this everyday I wouldn’t live very long. I would probably have died of a heart attack or diabetes years ago. But I have more sense than that. I realize how important diet is in maintaining one’s health but I’m also aware that it is what you eat most of the time and not what you eat only rarely that makes the difference.

I’ve written a few pointers on how to correctly manage a cheat day at the end of this article. Read and understand them and you too can enjoy a day of pure food pleasure once a week and not have to worry about ruining your diet progress.

Have you been working-out lately? Because you look spectacular 🙂 If you liked this article go ahead and share it with your friends via the Facebook or Twitter buttons below and if you use Stumbleupon please give it a “Thumbs Up”. I’d really appreciate it 😉

Today is my birthday. Not the birthday of the blog (that was last month) but the actual anniversary of my day of birth.

Today I turn 29 years old. I have begun the last year of my “twenties” and I have to admit that the thought of getting closer to 30 actually scared me a little.

I’ve heard both good and bad things about turning 30 (thanks to everyone for their respective opinions) and I’ve come to a decision as to how I’m going to feel about it because let’s face it, life is not just the experiences we go through but the way we DECIDE to deal with them too.

I’ve decided that this is going to be the best year of my life… so far! By the time I hit 30 next year I am going to be the best version of ME that has ever existed.

I am going to be a better dancer, I am going to be stronger, I am going to know more than I’ve ever known, I am going to be a better person. I am going to be better!

I’m going to reach my prime… and keep going!

People like to make excuses. Excuses not to exercise, not to learn new things etc. Generally they’re excuses not to take risks! I’ve decided to to use getting older as my MOTIVATION and not as my excuse!

You owe it to yourself to do the same. I don’t know how old you are reading this blog, you may be 21 or 43 or 75. It doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is that you get something out of it. That you realize that you are capable of incredible things and that IF YOU WORK AT IT you are only going to get better from here out. Your age means nothing!

The next year is going to be full of changes for me. I know what I want and I know that I have to change things up to achieve it. I am going to be taking risks and that both scares and excites me.

No matter what happens from here out, this is going to be a spectacular year. I’ve decided to make it so.

Have you been working-out lately? Because you look spectacular 🙂 If you liked this article go ahead and share it with your friends via the Facebook or Twitter buttons below and if you use Stumbleupon please give it a “Thumbs Up”. I’d really appreciate it 😉

The best way to abs like this isn’t endless sit-ups (although they help), it’s a dedicated approach to what you eat. Now stop drooling and read the rest of the article.

Give yourself an Incentive
This idea may seem a little extreme to some but sometimes we need extreme incentives to get things done. Humans, unfortunately respond more strongly to the idea of losing something than to the idea of gaining something. What that means is that we will work harder when we think we will lose something than we will when we’re trying to achieve something.

The way to make this work to your advantage is to make a bet with a friend or group of friends. What you do is come up with a realistic goal and a time frame (e.g. drop 2% body-fat in a month). Tell your friend that if you don’t achieve your goal your friend has to ensure that there are consequences.

Now, the consequences are where things get interesting. You could keep it simple and just pay a monetary penalty (substantial enough to make you not want to lose it) to your friend or you could do this: give your “friend” the most embarrassing “fat-photo” you have of yourself and ask them to make it public, either by facebook or by mailing it to all your friends. For this you need a really trustworthy friend who is also ruthless (we all have them).

You’ll quickly see how easy it is to stick to your diet when you have the fear of public humiliation floating over your head!

The phrase “I don’t” is much more empowering than “I can’t” as it lets the speaker feel in control of their decisions. This feeling of control and empowerment makes sticking to a certain way of eating much easier and much more satisfying.

Remember, when you say “I don’t eat cake”, it’s because you know that it is not good for you and that it doesn’t help you with your goals of being healthier and looking better. When you say “I don’t eat cake” it’s because you are taking the conscious decision to be in control of what you eat and ultimately your health and your body.

Saying I can’t on the other hand makes you feel powerless, like there is some external force in control of you and dictating what you can and can do.

Change your vocabulary and change your results.

Be firm with others, especially your friends
You will encounter plenty of situations where people, especially your friends will offer you something that you shouldn’t have. It might be when your out for coffee or at a birthday party or maybe just at 11am in the office.

Whenever it is you need to put your foot down. Despite the best of intentions, friends can be persistent; “Go on, just have a small piece”, “A little bit won’t do you any harm” (If you’re Irish you know how bad we can be about things like this). You need to be firm and honest with them. Let them know that you appreciate the offer but you don’t eat that food. Ask them to respect your decision and not to offer again. It often helps to be specific and let them know why you don’t want it and that will keep them off your case in the future.

If all else fails just tell them your diabetic. That usually shuts people up.

Deal with your emotions
I could right a whole article on this point alone but this post is already long enough as it is.

The fact of the matter is, people often need some sort of a crutch to deal with difficult emotions. Everyone has something different; alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, food… even sex and exercise.

We need to learn to deal with these emotions so we don’t fall into the habit of emotional/stress eating i.e. Literally using to food to avoid dealing with stressful emotions. This is where relaxation techniques such as meditation can come in handy but I really recommend reading into Neuro Linguistic Programing (NLP) and how it can help you handle stress and other negative emotions. I’m not going to go into what it is hear so it’s time to get your google on!

Don’t let stress get to you so much that you end up turning to food for comfort.

Dealing with emotional eating can go a huge way towards dealing with problems you may have had with sticking to diets previously. Stress is a major issue in the modern world and the role it plays in our eating habits definitely shouldn’t be underestimated.

Learn to cook
There really is no better way to take control of what you eat than by cooking for yourself. However, it never ceases to amaze me how many people say they can’t cook.

If you’re one of these people it’s up to you to take the initiative to learn. I’m not saying you should try and become a gourmet chef but try learning a few basic (and very importantly, tasty) recipes that you can alternate throughout the week.

They say the most successful dieters stick to a limited range of recipes that they enjoy and this is the reason for their success. They keep things simple, tasty and regular (i.e. they have a routine).

If you need help just ask a friend who knows how to cook to teach you a few healthy recipes or just look for some online. There are loads of websites online full of amazing recipes for every particular eating style and diet on the face of the earth. There really is no excuse not to learn a few!

Do your absolute best to make the recipes tasty. There is no point in learning a super healthy recipe that tastes like cardboard and cat urine. If you don’t want to eat it you’ll just end up with an excuse to eat something unhealthy instead!

Know what your eating
The vast majority of diets require you measure (to a certain extent) the quantity of certain foods you eat. It really is for your benefit to learn what exactly is in each portion of the foods you consume regularly.

The best way I’ve found to do this is to use the USDA Food Tables. This is a database of nutritional values for a huge range of foods. You just enter the food your looking for in the search bar and then it allows you to chose the quantity of the particular food (example: 100g of raw lentils). I always search the value of foods in there uncooked state because that’s when you have the best chance to accurately weigh them; when they’re separate from other foods.

This is particularly important if you apportion your food like I’ve already recommended. You can weigh all the ingredients before cooking and then apportion everything appropriately later. Which brings me to my next point…

Buy a kitchen scales
It is one of the ultimate tools in the dieters arsenal and if you don’t have one go out and get one ASAP. A kitchen scales allows you to accurately measure food portions and eventually you’ll learn how to estimate the nutritional value of some foods by sight.
Buy a scales now!

Cheat… a little
Having a scheduled cheat day or cheat meal is a great way to give yourself a mental break from dieting. Tim Ferris really championed cheat days in his “Slow Carb Diet” and “The 4 hour Body”. Everyone knows I have a serious man-crush on/ vicious rivalry with Tim Ferriss so of course I’m going to advocate this diet tip!

Basically a cheat day is a day that you schedule to eat the foods that you normally wouldn’t eat on a regular diet day. As I said it gives you a mental break but it can also counter some of the negative effects of extended caloric restriction. What I mean by this is that our bodies are designed to store fat (a genetic ability that we have maintained from our past when food was scarce and being able to store fat was advantageous) and when we reduce our calories our body automatically undergoes hormonal changes that make losing body-fat more difficult. Without getting into too much detail (this is an entire article on its own) an occasional spike in calories (and certain macro-nutrients) helps “reset” certain hormones in our bodies that can prevent these stalls in fat loss.

If “The Rock” says it’s ok to have a cheat day, who’s going to argue.

While cheat-days can sound like proof of the existence of God, they need to be done right to prevent you from going overboard. Here’s a few little tips for cheat days:

Keep a list of the foods you’d like to have on your cheat day that you can update during the week.

Skip breakfast and wait until lunch time to start eating. This prevents you from taking in too many calories during the day.

Don’t stuff yourself late at night as this can result in a bad nights sleep and with you waking up with a “food-hangover” the next day. This can result in the food cravings I mentioned in the section on getting proper sleep (Part 1). In fact, try not to eat after 9pm.

Get plenty of fibre during the day from fruits and vegetables which will help move those less-than-healthy foods through your system quicker. I usually finish of my day of gluttony with a couple of tablespoons of ground flaxseeds in water or a small bowl of porridge (oatmeal).

Try and eat out of the house as much as possible or if you do eat in the house get rid of whatever leftovers there are at the end of the day to make sure you’re not tempted to eat them the next day or during the week.

Ideally have your cheat day on a heavy exercise day. That way at least some of the extra calories will go towards muscle growth and repair instead of automatically getting sent to be stored as body fat.

Just try not to end up like this guy at the end of the day! Food-hangovers can be pretty bad!

A cheat day is a handy little trick to have if managed correctly. Just make sure that you go back to your regular, healthy way of eating the next day. Food-hedonism is great, but in moderation.

To check out a diabetes-inducing photo log of how I enjoy my own cheat days check this out!

Be flexible
We’re all human (I’m assuming) and that means that we are inherently imperfect. Life is going to throw things at you that will try to derail your progress but it’s how you deal with those situations that makes the difference.

There will be times when the only food available to you is something you would rather not have. You have two valid options:

Don’t eat: Yes I’m serious! There are very few situations in life where you absolutely “have to” eat at a certain time. If it’s socially acceptable to do so just skip the food and wait until you get home or until you can get some healthy food. Believe me, we, as a society, eat far too regularly as it is. A little bit of fasting will do you absolutely no harm whatsoever.

Eat the food available… but do it consciously: Dieters have a tendency to see any break-down in their plan, no matter how small it is, as an opportunity/excuse to go crazy and “compensate eat” like it’s going out of fashion. Instead, eat more consciously. What that means is, eat the food available in normal/small portion and leave it at that. You don’t need to eat a second portion, nor do you need dessert nor do you need to visit the donut shop after just because you’ve strayed from the one true path. Accept that you’ve eaten something that wasn’t ideal and be aware that the best way to get over that is just to go back to your healthy eating patterns at the next meal i.e. not to lose your cool and eat everything in sight.

These little hiccups happen. Just make sure they remain isolated hiccups and don’t end up turning into chronic indigestion!

…and that’s that! These are some of the tips that I’ve found most useful for sticking to my eating plans, whatever they are at the time.

As I said in Part 1, you don’t need to use them all but they definitely have a cumulative effect so the more you can incorporate into your routine the faster you should see results.

If you have any tips you’ve used yourself go ahead and let me know in the comments.

Have you been working-out lately? Because you look spectacular 🙂 If you liked this article go ahead and share it with your friends via the Facebook or Twitter buttons below and if you use Stumbleupon please give it a “Thumbs Up”. I’d really appreciate it 😉